Federal judge strikes Trump order blocking wind energy development

wind win

A federal judge has thrown out President Trump's executive order blocking wind energy development, calling it 'arbitrary and capricious.' Photo by Moritz Lange via Unsplash.

In a win for clean energy and wind projects in Texas and throughout the U.S., a federal judge struck down President Donald Trump’s “Day One” executive order that blocked wind energy development on federal lands and waters, the Associated Press reports.

Judge Patti Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts vacated Trump’s executive order from Jan. 20, declaring it unlawful and calling it “arbitrary and capricious.”

The challenge was led by a group of state attorneys general from 17 states and Washington, D.C., which was led by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The coalition pushed back against Trump's order , arguing that the administration didn’t have the authority to halt project permitting, and that efforts would critically impact state economies, the energy industry, public health and climate relief efforts.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told the Associated Press that wind projects were given unfair treatment during the Biden Administration and cited that the rest of the energy industry suffered from regulations.

According to the American Clean Power Association, wind is the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S. It provides 10 percent of the electricity generated—and growing. Texas leads the nation in wind electricity generation, accounting for 28 percent of the U.S. total in 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Several clean-energy initiatives have been disrupted by recent policy changes, impacting Houston projects.

The Biden era Inflation Reduction Act’s 10-year hydrogen incentive was shortened under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, prompting ExxonMobil to pause its Baytown low-carbon hydrogen project. That project — and two others in the Houston region — also lost federal support as part of a broader $700 million cancellation tied to DOE cuts.

Meanwhile, Texas House Democrats have urged the administration to restore a $250 million Solar for All grant that would have helped low-income households install solar panels.

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Musk has said Tesla will hold a shareholder meeting in November. Photo via Getty Images

Tesla announces annual meeting under pressure from shareholders

Tesla Talk

Tesla has scheduled an annual shareholder meeting for November, one day after it came under pressure from major shareholders to do so.

Billionaire Elon Musk's company said in a regulatory filing on Thursday that the meeting would be held Nov. 6, but that may prove troublesome because it comes nearly three months after it is required to do so under state law in Texas, where the company is incorporated.

The annual meeting, given Tesla's fortunes this year, has the potential to be a raucous event and it is unclear how investors will react to the delay, which is rare for any major U.S. corporation.

Tesla shares have plunged 27% this year, largely due to blowback over Musk's affiliation with President Donald Trump, as well as rising competition.

The announcement of the meeting comes a day after a group of more than 20 Tesla shareholders sent a letter to the company's board pressing for an annual meeting after receiving no word of one with the deadline just days away.

Many shareholders have been miffed by Musk's participation in the Trump administration this year, saying he needs to focus on his EV company which is facing extraordinary pressures.

“An annual meeting provides shareholders with the opportunity to hear directly from the board about these concerns, and to vote for or against directors, the board’s approach to executive compensation, and other matters of material importance,” the group said in the letter.

The group cited Texas law, which requires companies to schedule annual shareholders meetings within 13 months of the prior annual meeting.

Tesla’s last shareholders meeting was on June 13 of last year, where investors voted to restore Musk’s record $44.9 billion pay package that was thrown out by a Delaware judge earlier that year.

Also on Thursday, Musk that the Grok chatbot will be heading to Tesla vehicles.

“Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon. Next week at the latest,” Musk said on social media platform X, in response to a post stating that Grok implementation on Teslas wasn't announced on a Grok livestream Wednesday.

Grok was developed by Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI and pitched as an alternative to “woke AI” interactions from rival chatbots like Google’s Gemini, or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Shares of Tesla rose 3% at the opening bell after tumbling this week when the feud between Trump and Musk heated up again.

Republicans and Democrats, environmental groups and the oil and gas industry all oppose the temporary sites. Photo via uh.edu

Supreme Court confronts what to do with growing pile of nuclear waste

The Debate Continues

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a fight over plans to store nuclear waste at sites in rural Texas and New Mexico.President Joe Biden's administration and a private company with a license for the Texas facility appealed a ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission exceeded its authority in granting the license. The outcome of the case will affect plans for a similar facility in New Mexico roughly 40 miles away.

On this issue, President Donald Trump's administration is sticking with the views of its predecessor, even with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican ally of Trump, on the other side.

The push for temporary storage sites is part of the complicated politics of the nation’s so far futile quest for a permanent underground storage facility.

Here's what to know about the case.

Where is spent nuclear fuel stored now?

Roughly 100,000 tons of spent fuel, some of it dating from the 1980s, is piling up at current and former nuclear plant sites nationwide and growing by more than 2,000 tons a year. The waste was meant to be kept there temporarily before being deposited deep underground.

A plan to build a national storage facility northwest of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain has been mothballed because of staunch opposition from most Nevada residents and officials.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said that the temporary storage sites are needed because existing nuclear plants are running out of room. The presence of the spent fuel also complicates plans to decommission some plants, the Justice Department said in court papers.

Where would it go?

The NRC granted the Texas license to Interim Storage Partners LLC for a facility that could take up to 5,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel rods from power plants and 231 million tons of other radioactive waste. The facility would be built next to an existing dump site in Andrews County for low-level waste, such as protective clothing and other material that has been exposed to radioactivity. The Andrews County site is about 350 miles west of Dallas, near the Texas-New Mexico state line.

The New Mexico facility would be in Lea County, in the southeastern part of the state near Carlsbad. The NRC gave a license for the site to Holtec International.

The licenses would allow for 40 years of storage, although opponents contend the facilities would be open indefinitely because of the impasse over permanent storage.

Political opposition is bipartisan

Republicans and Democrats, environmental groups and the oil and gas industry all oppose the temporary sites.

Abbott is leading Texas' opposition to the storage facility. New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also is opposed to the facility planned for her state.

A brief led by Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on behalf of several lawmakers calls the nuclear waste contemplated for the two facilities an “enticing target for terrorists” and argues it's too risky to build the facility atop the Permian Basin, the giant oil and natural gas region that straddles Texas and New Mexico.

Elected leaders of communities on the routes the spent fuel likely would take to New Mexico and Texas also are opposed.

What are the issues before the court?

The justices will consider whether, as the NRC argues, the states forfeited their right to object to the licensing decisions because they declined to join in the commission’s proceedings.

Two other federal appeals courts, in Denver and Washington, that weighed the same issue ruled for the agency. Only the 5th Circuit allowed the cases to proceed.

The second issue is whether federal law allows the commission to license temporary storage sites. Opponents are relying on a 2022 Supreme Court decision that held that Congress must act with specificity when it wants to give an agency the authority to regulate on an issue of major national significance. In ruling for Texas, the 5th Circuit agreed that what to do with the nation’s nuclear waste is the sort of “major question” that Congress must speak to directly.

But the Justice Department has argued that the commission has long-standing authority to deal with nuclear waste reaching back to the 1954 Atomic Energy Act.

Texan Elon Musk stands to benefit from the next president. Photo via cdn.britannica.com

Election results buoy stock at Texas-based Tesla

seeing dollar signs

Shares of Tesla soared Wednesday as investors bet that the electric vehicle maker and its Texas-based CEO Elon Musk will benefit from Donald Trump’s return to the White House.

Tesla stands to make significant gains under a Trump administration with the threat of diminished subsidies for alternative energy and electric vehicles doing the most harm to smaller competitors. Trump’s plans for extensive tariffs on Chinese imports make it less likely that Chinese EVs will be sold in bulk in the U.S. anytime soon.

“Tesla has the scale and scope that is unmatched,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, in a note to investors. “This dynamic could give Musk and Tesla a clear competitive advantage in a non-EV subsidy environment, coupled by likely higher China tariffs that would continue to push away cheaper Chinese EV players.”

Tesla shares jumped 14.8% Wednesday while shares of rival electric vehicle makers tumbled. Nio, based in Shanghai, fell 5.3%. Shares of electric truck maker Rivian dropped 8.3% and Lucid Group fell 5.3%.

Tesla dominates sales of electric vehicles in the U.S, with 48.9% in market share through the middle of 2024, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Subsidies for clean energy are part of the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022. It included tax credits for manufacturing, along with tax credits for consumers of electric vehicles.

Musk was one of Trump’s biggest donors, spending at least $119 million mobilizing Trump’s supporters to back the Republican nominee. He also pledged to give away $1 million a day to voters signing a petition for his political action committee.

In some ways, it has been a rocky year for Tesla, with sales and profit declining through the first half of the year. Profit did rise 17.3% in the third quarter.

The U.S. opened an investigation into the company’s “Full Self-Driving” system after reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian. The investigation covers roughly 2.4 million Teslas from the 2016 through 2024 model years.

And investors sent company shares tumbling last month after Tesla unveiled its long-awaited robotaxi at a Hollywood studio Thursday night, seeing not much progress at Tesla on autonomous vehicles while other companies have been making notable progress.

Tesla began selling the software, which is called “Full Self-Driving,” nine years ago. But there are doubts about its reliability.

The stock is now showing a 16.1% gain for the year after rising the past two days.

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6 major acquisitions that fueled the Houston energy sector in 2025

2025 In Review

Editor's note: As 2025 comes to a close, we're revisiting the biggest headlines and major milestones of the energy transition sector this year. Here are six major acquisitions that fueled the Houston energy industry in 2025:

Houston-based Calpine Corp. to be acquired in clean energy megadeal

Houston's Calpine Corp. will be acquired by Baltimore-based nuclear power company Constellation Energy Corp. Photo via DOE

In January 2025, Baltimore-based nuclear power company Constellation Energy Corp. and Houston-based Calpine Corp. entered into an agreement where Constellation would acquire Calpine in a cash and stock transaction with an overall net purchase price of $26.6 billion. The deal received final regulatory clearance this month.

Investment giant to acquire TXNM Energy for $11.5 billion

Blackstone Infrastructure, an affiliate of Blackstone Inc., will acquire a major Texas electricity provider. Photo via Shutterstock

In May 2025, Blackstone Infrastructure, an investment giant with $600 million in assets under management, agreed to buy publicly traded TXNM Energy in a debt-and-stock deal valued at $11.5 billion. The deal recently cleared a major regulatory hurdle, but still must be approved by the Public Utility Commission of Texas.

Houston's Rhythm Energy expands nationally with clean power acquisition

PJ Popovic, founder and CEO of Houston-based Rhythm Energy, which has acquired Inspire Clean Energy. Photo courtesy of Rhythm

Houston-based Rhythm Energy Inc. acquired Inspire Clean Energy in June 2025 for an undisclosed amount. The deal allowed Rhythm to immediately scale outside of Texas and into the Northeast, Midwest and mid-Atlantic regions.

Houston American Energy closes acquisition of New York low-carbon fuel co.

Houston American Energy Corp. has acquired Abundia Global Impact Group, which converts plastic and certified biomass waste into high-quality renewable fuels. Photo via Getty Images.

Renewable energy company Houston American Energy Corp. (NYSE: HUSA) acquired Abundia Global Impact Group in July 2025. The acquisition created a combined company focused on converting waste plastics into high-value, drop-in, low-carbon fuels and chemical products.

Chevron gets green light on $53 billion Hess acquisition

With the deal, Chevron gets access to one of the biggest oil finds of the decade. Photo via Chevron

In July 2025, Houston-based Chevron scored a critical ruling in Paris that provided the go-ahead for a $53 billion acquisition of Hess and access to one of the biggest oil finds of the decade. Chevron completed its acquisition of Hess shortly after the ruling from the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris.

Investors close partial acquisition of Phillips 66 subsidiary with growing EV network

Two investment firms have scooped up the majority stake in JET, a subsidiary of Phillips 66 with a rapidly growing EV charging network. Photo via Jet.de Facebook.

In December 2025, Energy Equation Partners, a London-based investment firm focused on clean energy companies, and New York-based Stonepeak completed the acquisition of a 65 percent interest in JET Tankstellen Deutschland GmbH, a subsidiary of Houston oil and gas giant Phillips 66.

Houston researchers develop energy-efficient film for AI chips

AI research

A team of researchers at the University of Houston has developed an innovative thin-film material that they believe will make AI devices faster and more energy efficient.

AI data centers consume massive amounts of electricity and use large cooling systems to operate, adding a strain on overall energy consumption.

“AI has made our energy needs explode,” Alamgir Karim, Dow Chair and Welch Foundation Professor at the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UH, explained in a news release. “Many AI data centers employ vast cooling systems that consume large amounts of electricity to keep the thousands of servers with integrated circuit chips running optimally at low temperatures to maintain high data processing speed, have shorter response time and extend chip lifetime.”

In a report recently published in ACS Nano, Karim and a team of researchers introduced a specialized two-dimensional thin film dielectric, or electric insulator. The film, which does not store electricity, could be used to replace traditional, heat-generating components in integrated circuit chips, which are essential hardware powering AI.

The thinner film material aims to reduce the significant energy cost and heat produced by the high-performance computing necessary for AI.

Karim and his former doctoral student, Maninderjeet Singh, used Nobel prize-winning organic framework materials to develop the film. Singh, now a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University, developed the materials during his doctoral training at UH, along with Devin Shaffer, a UH professor of civil engineering, and doctoral student Erin Schroeder.

Their study shows that dielectrics with high permittivity (high-k) store more electrical energy and dissipate more energy as heat than those with low-k materials. Karim focused on low-k materials made from light elements, like carbon, that would allow chips to run cooler and faster.

The team then created new materials with carbon and other light elements, forming covalently bonded sheetlike films with highly porous crystalline structures using a process known as synthetic interfacial polymerization. Then they studied their electronic properties and applications in devices.

According to the report, the film was suitable for high-voltage, high-power devices while maintaining thermal stability at elevated operating temperatures.

“These next-generation materials are expected to boost the performance of AI and conventional electronics devices significantly,” Singh added in the release.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.

Energy expert: What 2025 revealed about the evolution of Texas power

guest column

2025 marked a pivotal year for Texas’ energy ecosystem. Rising demand, accelerating renewable integration, tightening reserve margins and growing industrial load reshaped the way policymakers, utilities and the broader market think about reliability.

This wasn’t just another year of operational challenges; it was a clear signal that the state is entering an era where growth and innovation must move together in unison if Texas is going to keep pace.

What happened in 2025 is already influencing the decisions utilities, regulators and large energy consumers will make in 2026 and beyond. If Texas is going to remain the nation’s proving ground for large-scale energy innovation, this year made one thing clear: we need every tool working together and working smarter.

What changed: Grid, policy & the growth of renewables

This year, ERCOT recorded one of the steepest demand increases in its history. From January through September 2025, electricity consumption reached 372 terawatt-hours (TWh), a 5 percent increase over the previous year and a 23 percent jump since 2021. That growth officially positions ERCOT as the fastest-expanding large grid in the country.

To meet this rising load, Texas leaned heavily on clean energy. Solar, wind and battery storage served approximately 36 percent of ERCOT’s electricity needs over the first nine months of the year, a milestone that showcased how quickly Texas has diversified its generation mix. Utility-scale solar surged to 45 TWh, up 50 percent year-over-year, while wind generation reached 87 TWh, a 36 percent increase since 2021.

Battery storage also proved its value. What was once niche is now essential: storage helped shift mid-day excess solar to evening peaks, especially during a historic week in early spring when Texas hit new highs for simultaneous wind, solar and battery output.

Still, natural gas remained the backbone of reliability. Dispatchable thermal resources supplied more than 50 percent of ERCOT’s power 92 percent of the time in Q3 2025. That dual structure of fast-growing renewables backed by firm gas generation is now the defining characteristic of Texas’s energy identity.

But growth cuts both ways. Intermittent generation is up, yet demand is rising faster. Storage is scaling, but not quite at the rate required to fill the evening reliability gap. And while new clean-energy projects are coming online rapidly, the reality of rising population, data center growth, electrification and heavy industrial expansion continues to outpace the additions.

A recent forecast from the Texas Legislative Study Group projects demand could climb another 14 percent by mid-2026, tightening reserve margins unless meaningful additions in capacity, or smarter systemwide usage, arrive soon.

What 2025 meant for the energy ecosystem

The challenges of 2025 pushed Texas to rethink reliability as a shared responsibility between grid operators, generation companies, large load customers, policymakers and consumers. The year underscored several realities:

1. The grid is becoming increasingly weather-dependent. Solar thrives in summer; wind dominates in spring and winter. But extreme heat waves and cold snaps also push demand to unprecedented levels. Reliability now hinges on planning for volatility, not just averages.

2. Infrastructure is straining under rapid load growth. The grid handled multiple stress events in 2025, but it required decisive coordination and emerging technologies, such as storage methods, to do so.

3. Innovation is no longer optional. Advanced forecasting, grid-scale batteries, demand flexibility tools, and hybrid renewable-gas portfolios are now essential components of grid stability.

4. Data centers and industrial electrification are changing the game. Large flexible loads present both a challenge and an opportunity. With proper coordination, they can help stabilize the grid. Without it, they can exacerbate conditions of scarcity.

Texas can meet these challenges, but only with intentional leadership and strong public-private collaboration.

The system-level wins of 2025

Despite volatility, 2025 showcased meaningful progress:

Renewables proved their reliability role. Hitting 36 percent of ERCOT’s generation mix for three consecutive quarters demonstrates that wind, solar and batteries are no longer supplemental — they’re foundational.

Storage emerged as a real asset for reliability. Battery deployments doubled their discharge records in early 2025, showing the potential of short-duration storage during peak periods.

The dual model works when balanced wisely. Natural gas continues to provide firm reliability during low-renewable hours. When paired with renewable growth, Texas gains resilience without sacrificing affordability.

Energy literacy increased across the ecosystem. Communities, utilities and even industrial facilities are paying closer attention to how loads, pricing signals, weather and grid conditions interact—a necessary cultural shift in a fast-changing market.

Where Texas goes in 2026

Texas heads into 2026 with several unmistakable trends shaping the road ahead. Rate adjustments will continue as utilities like CenterPoint request cost recovery to strengthen infrastructure, modernize outdated equipment and add the capacity needed to handle record-breaking growth in load.

At the same time, weather-driven demand is expected to stay unpredictable. While summer peaks will almost certainly set new records, winter is quickly becoming the bigger wild card, especially as natural gas prices and heating demand increasingly drive both reliability planning and consumer stress.

Alongside these pressures, distributed energy is set for real expansion. Rooftop solar, community battery systems and hybrid generation-storage setups are no longer niche upgrades; they’re quickly becoming meaningful grid assets that help support reliability at scale.

And underlying all of this is a cultural shift toward energy literacy. The utilities, regulators, businesses, and institutions that understand load flexibility, pricing signals and efficiency strategies will be the ones best positioned to manage costs and strengthen the grid. In a market that’s evolving this fast, knowing how we use energy matters just as much as knowing how much.

The big picture: 2025 as a blueprint for a resilient future

If 2025 showed us anything, it’s that Texas can scale innovation at a pace few states can match. We saw record renewable output, historic storage milestones and strong thermal performance during strain events. The Texas grid endured significant stress but maintained operational integrity.

But it also showed that reliability isn’t a static achievement; it’s a moving target. As population growth, AI and industrial electrification and weather extremes intensify, Texas must evolve from a reactive posture to a proactive one.

The encouraging part is that Texas has the tools, the talent and the market structure to build one of the most resilient and future-ready power ecosystems in the world. The test ahead isn’t whether we can generate enough power; it’s whether we can coordinate systems, technologies and market behavior fast enough to meet the moment.

And in 2026, that coordination is precisely where the opportunity lies.

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Sam Luna is director at BKV Energy, where he oversees brand and go-to-market strategy, customer experience, marketing execution, and more.

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